Untitled

12 THE GREAT LONE LAND.
ment to one of discomfort. Some experience of the Atlantic
enables me to affirm that north or south of 35° north and
south latitude there exists no such thing as pleasant sailing.
But the usual run of weather, time, and tide outside the
ship is not more alike in its characteristics than the usual
run of passenger one meets inside. There is the man who
has never been sea-sick in his life, and there is the man who
has never felt well upon board ship, but who, nevertheless,
both manage to consume about fifty meals of solid food in
ten days. There is the nautical landsman who tells you
that he has been eighteen times across the Atlantic and
four times round the Cape of Good Hope, and who is generally
such a bore upon marine questions that it is a subject
of infinite regret that he should not be performing a fifth
voyage round that distant and interesting promontory.
Early in the voyage, owing to his superior sailing qualities,
he has been able to cultivate a close intimacy with the
captain of the ship; but this intimacy has been on the decline
for some days, and, as he has committed the unpardonable
error of differing in opinion with the captain upon
a subject connected with the general direction and termination
of the Gulf Stream, he begins to fall quickly in the
estimation of that potentate. Then there is the relict of
the late Major Fusby, of the Fusiliers, going to or returning
from England. Mrs. Fusby has a predilection for portnegus
and the first Burmese war, in which campaign her
late husband received a wound of such a vital description
(he died just twenty-two years later), that it has enabled
her to provide, at the expense of a grateful nation, for three
youthful Fusbies, who now serve their country in various
parts of the world. She does not suffer from sea-sickness,
but occasionally undergoes periods of nervous depression
which require the administration of the stimulant already